Mailboxes in rural areas typically are located along access roadways at distances significantly removed from mailbox owner's actual residence. Such distances, in any event, create problems in the collection of delivered mail from the mailbox to many persons, such as elderly and/or physically handicapped individuals, and to all persons in inclimate weather. To such persons a trip to an empty mailbox is not only an annoying inconvenience, but involves wasted physical hardship as well.
Many attempts to remedy this situation, involving mailbox-mounted signaling devices, have been suggested in the prior art. Such prior devices, however, in the main, have not proved in practice to be totally suitable in being too complicated and expensive to manufacture, being too complicated to operate in setting the signal trigger mechanism involved, and/or not being simply attachable to a wide variety of mailbox designs, even requiring in many cases a complete modification of the mailbox itself in violation of U.S. Post Office regulations. Other signaling devices have not enjoyed utility in requiring some operation by a mailman to trigger the signal mechanism other than simply opening the box door.
Thus, a search has continued in the art for an improved mailbox signaling device which overcomes the drawbacks of similar devices heretofore available.